Alex has a new site

[3bolt79]

Me too @rockandroll

However I have rid myself of the super cheap stuff that was piling up, like the Firefly I just sold to a friend. But I have got to say that guitar punched so high above its price bracket.

I also got rid of a Squier that was kind of iffy, and a Guitar Fetish guitar that was a wreck when I got it. The bushings for the bridge and tailpiece were lifting, and it had a big piece of paint missing. I got it for free and rehabbed it. It looked like a brand new guitar when I was done. That guitar was pure profit when I sold it the other day.

I also sold an Ovation too. Yesterday.

I do have some really nice MIC and MII guitars that aren't cheap or low quality.

I have an Epiphone Greeny Les Paul. It wasn't cheap. I bought it because it was better spec'd than the Gibson version, which I was considering, and I liked it more. The fact that it cost less than half of the price of the Gibson, was just a bonus.

On the other hand, I just got a custom color Gibson SG Standard a few months ago that was just $150 more than the Epi Greeny. I'm all about bang for the buck. As with any brand of guitar, you will eventually reach a point where as the cost goes up, the extra quality and features get to be a diminishing return.

 

[soulman969]

I don't care where the guitars are made, a good guitar is a good guitar. I only have three US made guitars, a 1979 Strat, a Gibson SG, and my Brian May Replica was made in USA actually.

I have mostly Mexican, Chinese, Indonesian, and Japanese made guitars. I love em all. I am not a guitar racist.

I like talking about the nuts and bolts and geek out on gear. Sometimes I enjoy working on guitars more than playing them. I am glad the new forum came along. Strat talk is getting Toxic. My Les Paul is kinda bad too. There seems to be personality clashes happening. Things I don't want to get involved with that don't affect me

Many forums become toxic once a clique or two begin to dominate them and you only get to party with them if you're one of the "kool kids" like them. The problem is the very few end up spoiling it for the many.

I had over 20k posts on TDPRI when it began to go south. TalkBass is a nightmare unless you just surf a topic or two that interests you. I can't post there so I just read stuff for informative purposes. TGP is another hot mess some days and I never hit up MyLesPaul cork sniffers.

Strat-Talk was pretty much a safe port in a storm but I notice that I don't post there as often as I once did. So maybe there is room for more smaller more personal forums like ours here. We have an excellent knowledge base and some truly friendly and intelligent members.

Hope you can build that same culture for Gear-Talk Scott.

 

[soulman969]

Hold the phone... they make guitars in the USA?! But... Looking around my room, I only see China and Indonesia!

They're the ones GC keeps in sealed off room and high on the wall where no one but the elite with pockets bulging with cash get to play.

 

[soulman969]

However I have rid myself of the super cheap stuff that was piling up, like the Firefly I just sold to a friend. But I have got to say that guitar punched so high above its price bracket.

Firefly taught many of us exactly how an importer could bring in a certain quantity of instruments, sell them cheap, and still make a nice profit. One key was no spoilage. Buy 1000 of them, mass market via Amazon, and when they're gone they're gone. Make 'em want more.

Then bring in another model even better or fancier than the last copying popular models that already have huge market share. Asian builders can hit most any price point you want if you give them a big enough order to produce them. Firefly did what others have been doing all along but without a huge overhead operation and distributors to support.

From my perspective Firefly kinda created their own "cult" of buyers to help promote the line. Had a good friend of mine who really hot on them when they first came out. He brought a couple of his early purchases by. I thought the build itself was attractive and of decent quality but the basic components/hardware/etc were cheap as it comes.

Where is Firefly these day? I don't hear as much about them any longer. Oh yeah, and I thought they should've come up with a very different name. Firefly even sounded far too Asian.

 

[3bolt79]

Firefly taught many of us exactly how an importer could bring in a certain quantity of instruments, sell them cheap, and still make a nice profit. One key was no spoilage. Buy 1000 of them, mass market via Amazon, and when they're gone they're gone. Make 'em want more.

Then bring in another model even better or fancier than the last copying popular models that already have huge market share. Asian builders can hit most any price point you want if you give them a big enough order to produce them. Firefly did what others have been doing all along but without a huge overhead operation and distributors to support.

From my perspective Firefly kinda created their own "cult" of buyers to help promote the line. Had a good friend of mine who really hot on them when they first came out. He brought a couple of his early purchases by. I thought the build itself was attractive and of decent quality but the basic components/hardware/etc were cheap as it comes.

Where is Firefly these day? I don't hear as much about them any longer. Oh yeah, and I thought they should've come up with a very different name. Firefly even sounded far too Asian.

They have a seller in the US at a website called Guitars Garden. That's where I got mine. I only lost 20 bucks when I sold it to GC the other day. I only paid $199.00 for it to begin with.

The pickups were OK. Cream coils with A5 magnets. Everything was good on that guitar except the bridge assembly. Much lower quality than Epiphone's current bridges. But, it had Locking Grover style tuners. Real rosewood for the fingerboard, and stainless steel frets with rounded ends.

 

[soulman969]

LOL my thread was approved and showed up

now it is gone......(without any notice why)

what a waste of time
and not worth to spend any more time at this place

Scott PM'd me and said somehow and algorithm removed it due to a link????? Not sure why but he said it's been restored. Hopefully he'll PM you himself.

 

[soulman969]

They have a seller in the US at a website called Guitars Garden. That's where I got mine. I only lost 20 bucks when I sold it to GC the other day. I only paid $199.00 for it to begin with.

The pickups were OK. Cream coils with A5 magnets. Everything was good on that guitar except the bridge assembly. Much lower quality than Epiphone's current bridges. But, it had Locking Grover style tuners. Real rosewood for the fingerboard, and stainless steel frets with rounded ends.

Haven't seen or played one in several years. From what I can recall the first one my friend brought over was an ES335 type. I don't recall anything all that special like locking tuners but it may have had a rosewood board or what's listed as a rosewood board.

My basic gripe was with the hardware (bridge/tailpiece) and the pickups. But then I may be pickier about such stuff than others. Overall I still preferred my Epiphones despite the price difference and I said so. That said I didn't feel the Firefly for it's price was a bad guitar. Just one that would take another $200 or so to bring it up to the level of an Epi ES335.

 

[Paruwi]

Scott PM'd me and said somehow and algorithm removed it due to a link????? Not sure why but he said it's been restored. Hopefully he'll PM you himself.

nobody contacted me.....

it could have been a link to facebook

I've decided to give it a second try, we'll see how it works

 

[3bolt79]

nobody contacted me.....

it could have been a link to facebook

I've decided to give it a second try, we'll see how it works

Yeah, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner Peter. But you've got the info now. That was a great thread you posted over there. Really special. I'm pretty Green as a mod, but I did discover that I could have restored your thread myself pretty quickly. I'm still learning. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[BGood]

Would have made a good song title, not unlike Janie's Got a Gun

 

[Paruwi]

Hold the phone... they make guitars in the USA?!

yeah - though some of them needed guidance from some Japanese Men....

**Makoto Sugimoto（杉本眞）**
Rather than being known as Masako Sugimoto's son, it's more accurate to recognize him as the representative of Sugi Guitars. During his time at Fujigen gakki, he contributed significantly to the revival of Fender USA, which had lost its production facility, and the establishment of the Fender USA Custom Shop. He crafted signature models for famous musicians, including Sting, Steve Vai...

 

[Equalphone]

I’ll swing by the new place. I hope they don’t have the Walmart ad feed!

 

[Equalphone]

Many forums become toxic once a clique or two begin to dominate them and you only get to party with them if you're one of the "kool kids" like them. The problem is the very few end up spoiling it for the many.

I had over 20k posts on TDPRI when it began to go south. TalkBass is a nightmare unless you just surf a topic or two that interests you. I can't post there so I just read stuff for informative purposes. TGP is another hot mess some days and I never hit up MyLesPaul cork sniffers.

Strat-Talk was pretty much a safe port in a storm but I notice that I don't post there as often as I once did. So maybe there is room for more smaller more personal forums like ours here. We have an excellent knowledge base and some truly friendly and intelligent members.

Hope you can build that same culture for Gear-Talk Scott.

TDPRI mods are random, arrogant, sometimes freakishly prudish, and play favorites.

If you have at least been severely reprimanded there, you haven’t been posting.

 

[soulman969]

TDPRI mods are random, arrogant, sometimes freakishly prudish, and play favorites.

If you have at least been severely reprimanded there, you haven’t been posting.

I was one of the more frequent posters at TDPRI with over 20k in posts. I left several years ago and asked them to terminate me based on precisely what you'd posted here. The place took a turn for the worse after it was sold. At that point I began posting here and on Strat-Talk far more frequently where those same issues don't exist.

I will never moderate the way TDPRI is moderated.